A study released by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Ohio State University has found the amount of gun violence in the top-grossing PG-13 films in 2012 exceeded that of the top-grossing R-rated movies.

The study, “Gun Violence Trends in Movies,” published in the December issue of Pediatrics, also said that amount of gun violence in PG-13 movies has more than tripled since 1985.

“It’s disturbing that PG-13 movies are filled with so much gun violence,” said Dan Romer, director of the Adolescent Communication Institute of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and a co-author of the study in a statement. “We know that movies teach children how adults behave, and they make gun use appear exciting and attractive.”

The study also contends that the growth in gun violence in PG-13 films can be linked to the “weapons effect,” a 2010 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin entitled “Automatic effects of alcohol and aggressive cues on aggressive thoughts” that found that the sight or depiction of a gun in the same room can make people behave more aggressively. They did not link their finding to any television or film gun usage.

“Because of the increasing popularity of PG-13 films, youth are exposed to considerable gun violence in movie scripts,” the researchers said in the study. “The mere presence of guns in these films may increase the aggressive behavior of youth.”

The Motion Picture Association of America declined a request to comment on this study. The Classification and Ratings Administration does explain on their website that ratings do not exist to regulate film content but rather to make parents aware of the content of films, which is done via ratings as well as their descriptors.

The study looked at the 30 top grossing films each year, 420 films since 1985. Researchers said that they found that 396 of them contained one or more five-minute segments with violent sequences.

According to Annenberg researchers, “the study focused on the firing of handheld guns with the intent to harm or kill a living being, excluding acts such as hunting and the use of large-scale weaponry such as rocket-propelled grenades and artillery. The study excluded violence that was not intended to harm, such as typical sports aggression and accidents.”

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